Tuesday, November 15, 2011

This is a priceless encapsulation of everything wrong with what America calls a healthcare system:

PHOENIX — An antivenom recently approved for fast treatment of severe reactions to scorpion stings comes with a high price tag.

Metro Phoenix hospitals are billing as much as $12,467 per vial of the antivenom, The Arizona Republic reported. Since the typical dose is three to five vials, bills for patients and their insurance companies can exceed $62,000.

The drug is made in Mexico and was clinically tested through the University of Arizona.

The cost inflates when the serum is sold in the United States. Each link in the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain from the Mexican factory to Arizona patients raises the price.

A Mexican biotechnology company produces more than 250,000 vials for Mexican residents, who are charged about $100 per vial.

Anyway, it's good to know that America isn't a third world country like, say, Mexico. In Mexico, if you're uninsured and you get stung by a deadly scorpion, you have to pay $100 at the hospital to get treatment. In America, you get the privilege of paying $62,000 for the same exact treatment. That helps ensure that hospital and health insurance companies reap huge profits, which in turn distributes out to shareholders, which in turn trickles down throughout the economy, which in turn generates the sort of economic growth that allows you to get a minimum-wage job you should really be grateful for, because it will help you pay off your $61,900 hospital bill that you would have avoided by getting treatment in a third world nation like Mexico.

Makes sense. Also, the OWS protesters are just lazy hippies who should get a job already. This is the greatest country on earth, and I have no idea what they could possibly be complaining about.